Transhumanism: the friendly face of the overhuman and the comic book Superman
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Jakub Chavalka
Abstract
The core of the study is a critical comparison of Nietzsche’s notion of Übermensch, and its transhumanist rewriting into different variants of the posthuman. The first part contextualizes transhumanist thought, primarily in relation to certain evolutionary ideas that, in their totality, exhibit a fundamental anthropological deficit: they speak of the evolutionary overcoming of human, but the limit of sensibility that attempts to imagine a future human being is only the mere negation of what human has been so far. In this way, the posthuman is not removed from the somewhat vague context of the technological “extension” of previous humanity. In this respect, the whole concept is grossly unaesthetic. The second part shows that Nietzsche’s rethinking of the overhuman was intertwined with other anthropological structures, for example, the idea of Mitfreude (‘shared joy’), which is supposed to creatively (in the manner of art) replace the morally misleading notion of compassion. The Übermensch therefore enabled Nietzsche to propose a different conception of intersubjectivity; one that would no longer be reduced to contempt for the human being. The third section traces the causes of the transhumanist failure in productive imagination. It is based on the hypothesis that this failure is driven by an unconscious preference for the figure of the comic book Superman. It postulates, through a Kantian conception of the sublime, that an adequate elaboration of the image of the posthuman cannot do without an affective component that would allow for Bejahung (‘affirmation’). Only the artificial will always appear, to some degree, as alien, and therefore will never transcend the limits of reactive adaptation. A living posthuman could only emerge if he offered anthropological techniques of the art of living. Therefore, transhumanism continuously raises anthropological questions, especially regarding the problem of the extent to which the artificiality of art can be identified with technology. Without proper answers, it will not achieve the complexity of Nietzsche’s overhuman, and will always only dilute him into technological supplements. The posthuman will come into being when he is conceived as a grandiose work of art.
Funding source: GAČR 22-17984S: Focal images: Violence and Inhumanism in contemporary art and media culture
Award Identifier / Grant number: GAČR 22-17984S
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Research funding: The study was funded by the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), project No. 22-17984S: Focal images: Violence and Inhumanism in contemporary art and media culture.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: from semiotic odysseys to artistic tele-machinations
- The structural human and semiotic animal: between pride and humiliation
- Tomás Saraceno: semiotic regimes of posthuman temporalities
- To be is not to inhabit: Yuri M. Lotman’s Ulysses and his transhumanist context
- Transhumanism: the friendly face of the overhuman and the comic book Superman
- The impatient gaze: on the phenomenon of scrolling in the age of boredom
- Behavioral capital: gaming and monetization in post-marxist perspective
- The inhumanity of people living in Slovak Roma settlements: on the creation of the focal images
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: from semiotic odysseys to artistic tele-machinations
- The structural human and semiotic animal: between pride and humiliation
- Tomás Saraceno: semiotic regimes of posthuman temporalities
- To be is not to inhabit: Yuri M. Lotman’s Ulysses and his transhumanist context
- Transhumanism: the friendly face of the overhuman and the comic book Superman
- The impatient gaze: on the phenomenon of scrolling in the age of boredom
- Behavioral capital: gaming and monetization in post-marxist perspective
- The inhumanity of people living in Slovak Roma settlements: on the creation of the focal images
